Stoic Epistemology

This chapter investigates the Stoic understanding of impressions, assent, opinion, scientific knowledge, and cognition. By analyzing these concepts, I describe one major difference between the wise Stoic sage and unwise people: the wise person is capable of scientific knowledge and strong assent, while the rest of us are not. I will also interpret the Stoic account of the cognitive impression and describe several ways that the student of Stoicism might make epistemic progress.